Jim Ingraham: Alex Tanney is Browns' garbage-time quarterback

FILE - In this Aug. 17, 2013, file photo, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Alex Tanney (7) throws a pass against the Arizona Cardinals during the second half of a preseason NFL football game in Glendale, Ariz. The Browns have agreed to contract terms with Tanney on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013, who has spent the season on Dallas' practice squad. With starter Jason Campbell recovering from a concussion, the Browns didn't have a backup for Brandon Weeden, who will likely start Sunday against Jacksonville. Tanney, in his second NFL season, gives the Browns some protection in case Weeden gets hurt or struggles. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri, File)

So it’s come to this. There is now, officially, a very good chance that the Browns could end the season with a starting quarterback who is best known for being able to throw a football long distances — you can’t make this stuff up — into a garbage can.
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Talk about a perfect fit. He is first team, All-Predestination. The ultimate garbage-time quarterback hired by a team whose last two games ended in the blowout dumpster.
It’s a marriage made in sanitation heaven.
Alex Tanney, the bells and whistles quarterback, playing for the Cleveland Browns, slogging through another ball-and-chain season.
Sometimes the man meets the moment and it’s magic.
In his college days at that football factory Monmouth, chief justice Tanney became an Internet sensation when videos of him flinging the pigskin ridiculous distances with ridiculous accuracy lit up the YouTube universe.
If you haven’t seen them, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxDJb03a0yo. It really is incredible: throwing a football from the top of a six-story building to a “receiver” sitting in the back of a moving pickup truck 100 yards away; hitting a football crossbar, or uprights, on throws from mid-field, and, of course, throwing a ball into a garbage can from long distances, or even blind throws from one building into the garbage can inside another.
Tanney’s jaw-dropping repertoire screams two obvious questions:
How does he do that?
And: What’s he doing at Monmouth?
Shouldn’t a quarterback who can throw a football that far, that accurately, and that consistently at least be playing at Bethune-Cookman?
Apparently Tanney is more of a freakish circus act than an unpolished Drew Brees. There’s a reason why he was at Monmouth, a reason why he wasn’t drafted by the NFL and a reason why he was signed by the Browns off the practice squad of the Dallas Cowboys.
Before that, he was a member of Kansas City’s practice squad.
Practice?
If there’s one thing Tanney doesn’t need is practice. Go watch the videos.
Trick-shot Tanney is not a one-trick pony, but he obviously has, given his spotty resume, some shortcomings as an NFL quarterback.
That makes him a perfect fit for his new team.
Because the Browns, as you may have heard, have some shortcomings at the quarterback position. Specifically: They don’t have one.
The current custodian is Brandon Weeden, who could be in danger of losing the job three times in one season, which, one would think, would likely be a record for a first-round draft pick.
Jason Campbell has a concussion and Tanney is really good at throwing footballs into garbage cans.
That’s currently the Browns’ stable of quarterbacks. Fortunately, they aren’t going to play any meaningful games the rest of the season, so it’s not that big of a deal. After back-to-back blowout losses to the division foes Bengals and Steelers the last two weeks, it’s pretty much garbage time the rest of the way for the last-place Browns.
That might be another reason why the Browns signed Tanney. He’s a prime-time garbage-time player, and has the videos to prove it.
If nothing else, Tanney could offer an entertaining diversion over the Browns’ last five games. It might be kind of fun to see the NFL adaptability of a guy who on a basketball court can consistently swish full-court shots with a football.
Hey, whatever gets us through the end of the season, right?
Let’s face it, these are no longer auditions for the quarterback job. That ship has sailed. There’s a very good chance none of the quarterbacks on the Browns’ active roster will even be on the roster next year.
Weeden was drafted by the previous regime, so there is no allegiance on the part of Team Banner for him. Campbell was signed as a stop-gap backup. Those guys are a dime a dozen, and readily available at roster cutdown time each year. And all we know for sure about Tanney is that his only value would be if the NFL were to suddenly change the rules for overtime so that the winner is the first team to throw a pass into the back of a pickup truck from the top of a six-story building.
Injured Brian Hoyer, on one leg, is obviously the Browns’ best quarterback, and a likely participant next year either as the starter or the backup.
If you want to see the Browns’ probable starting quarterback for next year, watch all the college bowl games this year. He’s in there somewhere.
Until then, enjoy Tanney Time.
-- Brooklyn Nets coach Jason Kidd was fined $50,000 by the NBA for intentionally spilling a drink on the court and forcing a stoppage of play near the end of a game when his team was out of timeouts.
Meanwhile, the NFL is reviewing a play from Thanksgiving night when Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin stepped onto the field in the middle of a kickoff return, forcing Ravens kick returner Jacoby Jones to slow down in order to avoid Tomlin, and leading to Jones being tackled.
All of which proves that you can’t put a price on great leadership, except when you can.
-- Riding a wave of economic momentum off all the great numbers he produced before being suspended for 50 games for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, Jhonny Peralta cashed in by signing a four-year, $52 million contract with the St. Louis Cardinals.
So once again we learn that using performance-enhancing drugs can be a real black eye for a player’s career and image, as long as he doesn’t mind putting up with the millions upon millions of dollars he receives in exchange for it.
-- Nebraska coach Bo Pelini, whose team lost three home games this season, has challenged his bosses.
“If they want to fire me, go ahead,” said Pelini, who over the next five years will either be paid $15 million to coach the Cornhuskers, or, thanks to the buyout in his contract, $7.5 million to not coach them.
It’s the American Dream: finding someone who will make you a millionaire if you will agree not to work for them.
-- In his proclamation urging Ohioans to avoid using the letter “M” on Saturday, when Ohio State played Michigan, grandstanding Ohio Gov. John Kasich used the letter “M’’ when identifying Saturday’s date as “November” 29.
There is no “me” in Kasich, but there is an “I”. Boy, is there an “I”.
No word on whether Kasich ran this idea past Ohio State coach Urban Eyer. Weak of the week
Result of the Cavs’ first 13 field-goal attempts Friday vs. Boston:
Miss, miss, miss, miss, layup, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, blocked shot, miss. At that point there were five minutes left in the first quarter and the Cavs were losing, 18-2. The Celtics were shooting 80 percent from the field (8-for-10), the Cavs were shooting 7 percent (1-for-13), and Anthony Bennett hadn’t even taken off his warmups yet.
Weak. Very weak.